Hulu Plus for iOS was updated to version 3.0 today, notably offering a redesigned iPad interface intended to facilitate easier content discovery. With the updated app, users can minimize videos with simple pinch gestures to navigate through the app while the videos continue to stream.

There's also a discovery panel that offers up details on both shows and individual episodes, along with a new selection of curated shows, clips, and movies.

Quote:

We're excited to introduce you to an entirely new Hulu Plus experience for iPad. In addition to hundreds of internal optimizations, the Hulu Plus app has been redesigned to make browsing more enjoyable than ever and help you discover new and exciting shows with ease. Some things to look out for:

- Minimize a video during playback by tapping the minimize icon or "pinching" the video. The video will continue playing at the bottom of the screen while you use the app to browse, search, or do anything else you can think of.

- Tap on an image of any episode, show, or season to take a peek at what's inside using the new discovery panel. Have fun casually exploring old episodes within a season or learning more about a new show with as little effort as possible. (Want to get straight to watching content? Just double-tap any image).

- Check out collections of editorially curated shows, clips, and movies. We recommend starting with the "Trending Now" collection of the day's hottest clips - it's a great way to see what everybody's talking about right now.

- Watch clips and short-form content inline, just one tap away.
We've made sure to keep all of your favorite features intact, including the popular Kids Lock (iPad-only) which limits the app to ad-free, safe and enjoyable content from our selection of Kids programming.

I've been wanting to use this service, so I'm started the 2 week free trial last night. Will play with it and see if it's another bill I want to ad to my monthly expenses. My main screens will be the Apple TV and the New iPad. I'm not liking having to see ads though, so that may kill this from jump. And depending on how severe the restrictions are (can watch on web but not Apple TV?), this service may not be worth it.

We've been Hulu Plus subscribers for a while now. Makes it easy to watchshows on the AppleTV without tying up a computer at the same time.

One thing to note, though, if you have a family: Hulu Plus is one active stream at a time, per account. Netflix made a big deal recently of allowing for four or five simultaneous streams instead of two, and I believe Amazon Prime also allows multiple simultaneous streams (but they are so crappy at streaming I've never tested that one). But Hulu Plus allows only one stream at a time. So if the kids are watching something on the AppleTV (any Hulu content) you can't watch a Hulu Plus show on the computer in the other room (but you can watch "normal" Hulu content on that computer).

It's far from a perfect service, but we find most of our "TV" watching (we dropped cable almost 5 years ago now), by bulk, goes to Hulu/Hulu Plus. The rest is just AppleTV rentals/purchases and occasionally we suffer through a show on Amazon.

Hulu+ problem is identical in my book to that of Pandora One service: The difference between the free and paid subscription is so minor, most people, like myself, stick with the free.

Hulu+ has some minor exclusive content and longer expiry dates, plus you can play it on Roku and the iPad. For me it's the TV that counts. My 2 year old Dell ultrabook has HDMI port, and thanks to Hipporemote, I can control my PC mouse using my iPad / iPhone. I watch Hulu a lot to catch up on TV I missed, but it's all on Hulu free.

Same goes with Pandora, the free one -even with the 40 hour limit- is more than sufficient, and I use it a lot.

Both services in my opinion have to step up with their paid subscription to convince people to spend money.